


Bad Santa

by Call_Me_Clarence



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Crack, Christmas Fluff, Happy Ending, I feel like there's a tag I'm missing, Kat's Johnlock Xmas Challenge 2019, M/M, Santa Hat, but I have a headache so we'll prob never know what it was, but then makes it back up, oh well, pre slash, santa, sherlock ruins christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Call_Me_Clarence/pseuds/Call_Me_Clarence
Summary: Sherlock ruins Christmas for a bunch of kids. John is not pleased. Sherlock manages to charm his way out of a stern talking to.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Kat's Johnlock Xmas 2019





	Bad Santa

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Плохой Санта](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988270) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



> For Kat's Johnlock Xmas Challenge, day 18. The prompt was Santa.

“Stop that Santa!” Sherlock shouted as he and John chased their red and white dressed suspect down a busy street.

People turned their heads to look at the mad man shouting about Santa, but did not try to stop the obviously intoxicated Father Christmas, nor did they move out of the way as Sherlock and John rapidly approached.

“Move!” Sherlock yelled, pushing the mouth-breathing pedestrians out of the way. “John! He’s heading towards the mall!” 

They managed to push pass the throng of Christmas shoppers and through the entrance to the shopping mall. Sherlock immediately zeroed in on the Santa village they had set up.

“He’s trying to shake us off in the crowd of other Santas!” Sherlock was already running towards the brightly colored, flashing lights of ‘Christmas Town’--or so said the poorly hung up sign.

“He won’t.” John looked down at his phone, tracking the suspect phone via the GPS on his own.

In the end they didn’t need the GPS. Sherlock picked a Santa out of the crowd and immediately ran forward and tackled him. John didn’t often question Sherlock on whether he’d gotten the right man, but couldn’t stop himself from feeling dread as Sherlock went flying through the air before colliding with Chris Kringle. How could he explain their way out of this one if Sherlock had just attacked some poor, unassuming, Santa Claus? 

“Get tha fook off me!” The Santa shouted as Sherlock wrestled with him to the ground. “I’ll fookin’ kill ya!”

The foul mouth sort of put John at ease. Even if he was the wrong Santa, at least he wasn't very polite... Though he had just been tackled... Hmm. 

“John, help me with him!” Sherlock grunted as Santa landed a solid blow to his solar plexus.

“Right! Got it!” John rushed forward and together he and Sherlock got Santa’s hands behind his back, Sherlock cuffing the man with the cuffs John handed over.

As John handled the still kicking and spitting Santa, Sherlock stood up, suavely dusting off his coat, and then noticed the small audience that had gathered. 

“Oh... “ Sherlock looked down at a traumatized child as she watched Father Christmas swear up a storm and ruin her childhood forever. “Hello.” he said awkwardly. 

Sherlock looked back to John, and John tried to say something along the lines of ‘don’t’ but was too preoccupied with Santa to really get out more than a few huffs of exertion.

“Don’t worry,” Sherlock said, turning back to the children and their concerned parents. “That’s not really Santa.” Sherlock shammed a reassuring smile. The parents looked relieved. So did the kids. 

But then Sherlock just had to go on, didn’t he? He wouldn't be Sherlock if he didn't find a way to piss everyone off in a ten-block radius _at all times_ , would he?

“In fact.” he started up again. “Santa is not real at all. He's just a lie your parents tell you to get you to behave in the months leading up to Christmas. Which, in itself, is nothing more than a grand marketing scheme and the most successful consumerist propaganda to ever take the world by storm. Though based on more wholesome traditions--well, some of them are--the overall agenda seems to be getting people to buy things they don't need for people they don't like. And to force families who despise each other to sit around a table, staring at a Christmas pudding, saying nothing of import so someone doesn't _explode_ and chuck the Christmas dinner all over the floor.

It's tedious for absolutely everyone involved. Like you parents, you don't _really_ like all this last minute shopping, shelling out every last dime for toys your children will be tired of in a few months. And look at your children! They're just as bored and overstimulated by the garish color combinations and flashing lights as you are! None of you actually want to be here. So it doesn't matter that Santa isn't real, or that I just tackled him. You can all go home and stop wasting your time on this Christmas drivel.” 

Most of that went over the kids heads, parents too. But the part about Santa being a lie and Christmas being 'bad' seemed to stick. 

So that’s how John found himself, a week before Christmas, wrestling Santa to the ground as he tried to resist arrest, listening to the angry shouts of parents and the horrified cries of children. 

If Lestrade hadn’t shown up when he did, he was fairly certain there would have been a riot as people rushed forward to throttle the man who’d just ruined everyone’s Christmas. 

After their Bad Santa was carted off, Sherlock turned to John to say something, but John just held up a hand. He needed at least a few minutes of silence before Sherlock started in on excuses and explanations on why he wasn’t in the wrong. 

They decided against a cab, as the mall wasn’t too far off from Baker Street--and isn’t that just lovely? Seeing as they’d both received a lifetime ban from the place. The silence lasted a good ten minutes into their walk home when Sherlock couldn’t contain himself anymore.

“Not good?” he asked quietly. 

“No, Sherlock. Not good. Ruining thirty kids Christmas’ is pretty ‘not good’.” John told the pavement, refusing to look at his flatmate. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Am I--Of course I’m sure!” John bit his lip at his outburst, and began grinding his teeth to try and stop himself from shouting anymore.

“John.”

John ignored him.

“ _John_.”

Still ignoring him.

“John, look at me.” 

John sighed, closing his eyes, but looking over at Sherlock despite wanting to give him the cold shoulder ‘til Christmas come. He opened his eyes again to start in on Sherlock and how he could stop being a prick, at least for the holidays. But when he actually looked at the detective he was stopped in his tracks.

“ _What are you wearing_?” 

Sherlock smiled down at him, flinging the white puff-ball of his newly acquired Santa hat from one side of his head to the other.

“Just a little souvenir.” he quipped.

John tried, he really did, but ended up giggling away at Sherlock and the red and white hat precariously balanced on top of his curls. Sherlock joined in with a low-pitched chuckle that seemed to rumble about his chest cavity rather than coming out as normal laughter. John could feel it when their arms brushed against each other as they walked. 

“This doesn’t get you out of trouble.” John warned once they’d calmed down a bit.

“I took down a suspect, and yes, he was dressed as Father Christmas, but I hardly think--”

“That telling kids Santa wasn’t real wasn’t an absolutely awful thing to do?”

Sherlock pursed his lips. “Alright, perhaps that part was a bit not good.”

“You think?” John asked with heavy sarcasm. 

“Hmm.” 

Sherlock bit his lips for a moment, and John thought they’d walk in silence until they reached their flat.

“Would you say that you're too mad to go and grab takeout with me?” Sherlock asked, nudging John with his elbow.

John pretended to think it over. “That would be quite mad, wouldn’t it?” he looked up at Sherlock, smiled. “I’m actually starving. Where were you thinking?”

“That new Chinese place around the corner?” 

“Perfect.” 

They started off towards their chosen restaurant, when John looked back over at Sherlock.

“You’re not actually going to keep wearing that hat are you?”

“Hmm? Oh.” Sherlock side-eyed the puff-ball swinging by his face as he walked. “I thought it was very becoming.” 

“Sherlock.” John laughed.

“Could replace the deerstalker.”

John rolled his eyes.

Suddenly there was something soft and fluffy being placed on his head.

“What are you--” John cut himself off as the white puff-ball swung into view.

“Here, we can take turns.” Sherlock chuckled.

John had a moment where he thought of taking off the hat and stuffing it into his pocket, but decided against it. Instead he pushed the hat back a little, so he could at least see where he was going, and then kept calm and carried on. 

John wore the hat when they went in to pick up their food. He then texted Mrs.H to be ready, and slipped the hat back onto Sherlock’s head right before they entered 221. She snapped a picture of him before Sherlock even had time to react. 

John loved that photo; a confused and red-eyed Sherlock--from the camera flash, not drugs (thank God)--arms full of Chinese takeout and that hat clumsily balanced on his head. It ended up framed and on the wall above the fireplace. Even all these years later, John will be walking, or pacing, in front of the fire, and see that picture. And for a moment he’ll be filled with memories of Sherlock tackling Santa, of that stupid hat--which they still have somewhere--and the rest of that night. He'd remember how they’d zoned out together on bad telly and good Chinese food. How they’d ended up falling asleep and waking up snug as a bug, wrapped up around each other. How they’d had their first kiss, complete with morning breath and Mrs. H interrupting them as things got heated. John would remember all that, and it would bring a smile to his face. It was, to this day, his favorite picture of Sherlock. And he was pretty sure it always would be.

  
  
  


~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> I made Grog for the first time right before I started editing this. I am at this weird drunk/hungover phase. And at one point I was just staring at the words on the screen, had been for a while, before I threw my hands up and asked myself out loud if I even knew how to word... How did pirates do this? Not the fanfic part--though I'd love to read that--but the drinking part. Grog is awful... Don't make bad choices like me, folks.
> 
> Oh shhhhhugar! I almost forgot to thank you for reading!! So... Thanks for reading! <3 I hope you liked this nonsense :) If you comment it will make me less hungover. No, I'm not making this up. It's friggin' science. You just wouldn't understand. 
> 
> Seriously though, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE EVE! It's not Christmas eve yet, so I tacked that extra eve on there heh....okay I'm stopping now.


End file.
